CFL referee not taking anything for granted after heart attack

Proulx would normally be working the Grey Cup instead of watching it

CFL official Andre Proulx is used to working the Grey Cup, but he’ll instead be watching it. After suffering a heart attack while working a game in Edmonton on June 30, he attempted to come back this season before shutting it down.

Photograph by: Calgary Herald/Files

For Andre Proulx, the personal highlight reel for the 2012 Canadian Football League season is locked on the moment he finally accepted his mortality.

A high-achiever to the core, Proulx came to the life-changing realization in an ambulance racing up the ramp at Commonwealth Stadium en route to the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

“It struck me,” Proulx says from his home in Drummondville, Que. “I always thought this stuff happened to other people, but it would never happen to me.

“You know what? I’m not different. If you don’t take care of yourself, bad things can happen.”

Turns out referees — the zebras in striped shirts, the men we like to call blind and lacking in intelligence when they throw flags against our team — are indeed human like the rest of us.

Widely considered one of the best referees in the land, Proulx suffered a heart attack during Edmonton’s season opener June 30 against the Toronto Argonauts.

He returned from the injured list to work three games in late August and early September, only to suffer side-effects from the medication that required him to call it a season.

And so Proulx, 48, will watch the 100th Grey Cup with bottled water in hand this weekend from the comfort of his couch.

“I’m going to cheer for the officials,” Proulx says. “I want to make sure everything goes without a hitch. That’s what I’m hoping for is that we do a great game.

“If nobody notices the officials on the field, then I’ll be very happy.”

Everybody noticed Proulx on the field that summer day in Edmonton when he tossed his black referee hat to fellow official Michel Pissoneault.

Cap doffed, body overheating, Proulx, trudged over to the Edmonton sideline to see the team doctor. Initially the medical staff figured the chief zebra was simply suffering from heat exhaustion.

“The only thing I remember is lying on the doctor’s table in his office,” Proulx says. “I saw a piece of paper coming from someone to the doctor, and I saw the doctor’s face.

“At that point, I knew something was wrong.”

The medical staff broke the news in the ambulance. With a history of high cholesterol and type-2 Diabetes, Proulx had suffered a minor heart attack.

Upon arrival at the hospital, Proulx watched the rest of the football game from his bed. Within the hour, doctors performed an angioplasty by inserting a stent through the wrist.

When director of officiating Tom Higgins arrived at the hospital, Proulx wanted to talk about a call made by his crew in the fourth quarter.

“I’m thinking, ‘You’re in the hospital for a reason,’ ” Higgins said at the time “ ‘Cut it out with the football.’ ”

The owner/operator of a Drummondville construction firm, Proulx realized he had to switch up the game plan for his life.

“I quit smoking,” says Proulx, who smoked a pack a day for 20-25 years. “For someone who doesn’t smoke, it seems very easy to say, ‘I’m going to quit.’ But when you smoke, I know it’s a bad habit. But it’s very hard. That night in Edmonton, I had made my decision, and I haven’t had a smoke since.

“I quit without anything. All the times I tried before. I used the patch, I used many techniques that didn’t work. To me, it all starts in your brain when you’re ready. If you’re not ready, you may use all the tools around, but it won’t work.”

With the determination to make it work, Proulx cut greasy foods from his diet and kept up with his training regimen of running 5 km a day.

“There’s a reason I’m on the treadmill,” he says. “I want to be back next season. feel great, and I miss being on the field. There’s no other place I would like to be.

“It’s hard watching a football game at home when I know I should be there.”

The Grey Cup is considered the prize game for officials, and Proulx has three on his resume (2001 as a side judge, 2004 and 2010 as a referee.)

His advice to the men in stripes come Sunday?

“When you start refereeing or when you’re a player in the CFL, that’s your dream,” he says. “You want to be at the Grey Cup.

Story Tools

CFL official Andre Proulx is used to working the Grey Cup, but he’ll instead be watching it. After suffering a heart attack while working a game in Edmonton on June 30, he attempted to come back this season before shutting it down.

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